Little Bit of Something
by Demeter1
Summary: Christmas doesn't mean much to 'God' except for the fact that on that day, some Juunishi are supposedly required to show up.


**"Little Bit of Something"**

**Demeter**

**Disclaimer:** All rights and privileges of Fruits Basket characters, objects and plots are property and trademarks of Takaya Natsuki and associated parties. The author claims no legal responsibility for problems associated with using this work. The original story, relationships, and characters found within the fic are property of the author Demeter.

**Rating:** PG

**Pairings:** None

**Notes:** Set during Akito's childhood, pre-current timeline.

**Warnings:** Unless you really, really hate Akito...

**Summary:** Christmas doesn't mean much to 'God' except for the fact that on that day, at least some of her Juunishi are required to show up. Originally written for the Akito Sohma Yahoo ML Holiday Contest.

* * *

"Looking a little busy, aren't we?"

Akito turned around and she couldn't help but scowl and drop the handful of snow she'd packed into a tiny irregularly-shaped ball of ice. Her lips were pale and tinged with the slightest bit of blue even though everyone, from Ren to Hatori, had told her she had to stay inside. Shigure leaned lazily against the doorway that led into her exclusive garden and in the dimming sunlight his dark hair curled around his face and dipped low into a navy blue collared shirt. He had on loose cream-colored pants that clung to slim hips still largely untouched by puberty.

She didn't deign to answer, choosing instead to shuffle over the thick coating of snow and step back onto the icy wooden floor of the raised dais. The heavy white robes Akito wore beneath her thin gray yukata looked dingy next to the pureness of the snow, but Shigure didn't miss the pale pallor, almost-cleverly offset by the combination of colors.

Taking a lingering glance at the silence of a world unworried by the frenetic pace of modernity, he closed the wooden door behind them and padded over to where Akito had settled down somewhat awkwardly, the sheer volume of clothing on her small frame impeding her movements. Akito looked a little annoyed, her face pinching at the corners.

He couldn't blame her; ever since yet another attempted kidnapping almost six days ago, Ren hadn't allowed Akito out of the inner quarters. The woman had barely even been tolerable about any of the Juunishi coming to see Akito, though she should have _well_ known Akito went through extreme mood swings when pushed into corners.

Shigure plopped down next to her and laid idly back, the cool tatami like a splash of water to his sensitive back. It would have been colder if not for the little heaters beneath the wooden floors for Akito's quarters, even if they were deemed too wasteful for anyone. A perk, Shigure supposed, for being a sacrifice.

Akito had been studiously ignoring Shigure, her head not even turning to look at him as she brought out delicate white parchment and a paperweight. Like most of the Sohma children, Akito had taken several lessons on calligraphy but what was different was that she had taken an unusually intense interest that Ayame was encouraging on the sly.

"Need any help, Akito?"

She didn't bother answering, leading Shigure to chuckle at the rebellious bent in her posture.

"What's wrong, Aki? Did I do something wrong?" _Again_, he added silently.

At that, Akito did whip her head around to glare at him, eyes blazing. He smiled.

"C'mon, Aki. Tell me?"

Akito was gripping the base of her calligraphy brush so hard, Shigure fancied it'd snap in two soon and then he'd have to help scrub the black ink off the floors while Ren shrieked in the background. While he didn't mind scrubbing, the fleeting image of Ren's beautiful face contorted with rage as she shook Akito was a little more than he wanted to bear, so he reached over and placed a hand very, very gently over Akito's.

"Akito?" He dropped her nickname in favor for the name she both loved and loathed.

"... there's no color in this room."

He looked around. That was certainly true enough.

"Why can't I see the new Rat?"

Shigure paused for a moment. "Well, you know that there's a wait before they can be presented to you."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Sohma tradition?" A muscle jumped in Akito's cheek.

"I'm bored. I want flowers."

Shigure digested this new information, his other hand coming up to comb through struggle for a little while before succumbing to his minute embrace. It was a little unfair since Akito didn't really have the strength to say rigid for long. He always noticed the same things; the way her heart beat a little too fast, how her skin was heated abnormally high, and the little bit of ice in her gray eyes that melted by slow drips.

"Flowers, eh?"

Akito twisted in his arms, a pout curving lips made pink by barely-contained excitement. "One of the servants was talking about Christmas."

"Yes?"

A small, pale hand came up to stroke Shigure's cheek, leaving flushed skin behind in its wake. "_She_ said it was an unworthy day."

Shigure didn't need to ask Akito to clarify who 'she' was.

"It's not really a holiday for Japan, Aki. It was brought in by Westerners and turned into a commercialized commodity for sale."

"But doesn't Christmas mean family?"

He scratched his head and then shrugged unconcernedly. "Sure, I guess."

"Wouldn't that mean..." She bit her lip.

With a swift, deft shuffle, Shigure brought Akito firmly into his lap and wrapped his long arms around her shoulders and waist. He tucked her head under his chin and inhaled the soft scents of snow and clean powder and the spiciness of tea leaves and ink. Rocking back and forth, he asked softly, "What is it, Akito?"

In a voice made small by unconscious uncertainty, she said, "Wouldn't that mean everyone would have to come to give me presents?"

_Ah._

For all her posturing, for all the acts and words that made Akito so much older than the six she was supposed to be, what she wanted still boiled down to something Shigure dared to call basic.

It wasn't the second time - and it most definitely wouldn't be the last - Shigure mentally assigned a name to Ren he knew was both unfair and unkind. But with Akito all soft hurt in his arms, he couldn't bring himself to care. Besides, he'd promised Akira he'd always put Akito first and so far, he'd had no reason to break that particular promise.

Even if the former clan leader was...

Something clenched painfully inside of him, something that felt like he was breathing crushed glass with every intake of air. Shigure tried very hard not to think of the former head but it was hard when Akito looked at him with large eyes that were so reminiscent of a man who'd laughed as if the end of the world wasn't rushing up in a frenetic wave of _tooclosetoosoontoowrong_.

His arms tightened around Akito.

"Shigure?"

"I'll think of something, Akito."

He always did. Let it never be said he was not utterly faithful.

* * *

"I heard the Rat started crawling today."

Hatori's voice was soft but stern. There was a slender boy with impossibly pretty mint-green hair lying on his perfectly made bed, but he couldn't care, not with that empty look in Ayame's face.

"Yes."

"I suppose you're pleased."

"Mother's pleased."

"I suppose so."

Ayame propped himself up on one elbow. "Did Akito say anything about it?"

Hatori knew what Ayame was really asking. Words balanced and hidden because the wrong one could mean punishment and more. "Ren still won't let anyone but Shigure and Kureno come near he... him."

He pretended not to hear Hatori's little slip-up, because everyone knows that no one will stop slipping for a long time, not until everything's drilled in by Ren's incessant madness and fury. But who is anyone to defy Ren or Akito or the dead dead dead ghost of Akira?

"Kagura will be happy for a new playmate at least." There was no disguising the bitter note in Ayame's voice.

"Mm."

The snow was still falling outside the house, and everything was quiet and dark and just a little bit lonely. Christmas was drawing near, but the Sohma family didn't have a reason to want to celebrate a holiday brought over by the west and their usual attempts to conquer a country by oily words and righteous pockets of violence. The Sohma's are proud of their traditions.

Even if they do produce someone like Ren who doesn't want her little girl to be the new leader of the Sohma clan.

Hatori doesn't say anything when Ayame loped off the bed and slowly walked to where he was sitting on the floor. The impossibly-pretty-green head sunk into his lap and he tried to brush care and worry out of the strands.

The silence was neither comfortable nor strained.

"I miss Akito."

So does Hatori.

* * *

There was boredom and then there was something beyond that little barrier of sanity; Akito had just crossed the line and she'd hit a place where she was in the process of becoming bored with being bored of boredom. Maybe it was a new low. Maybe if she was quiet enough Ren would allow Ayame to come in with some tea and bright words.

Maybe she'd gone mad.

Shigure hadn't stopped by since he'd told her that he'd fix everything, but then had he promised that? It wasn't as if he could have brought the new Rat or Kagura anyways. They were too young to visit her as of yet and there was no small possibility Ren would banish Ritsu this year too in pure spite.

Akito hated her new robes.

They were heavy and dreary, something Ren undoubtedly drew from the closets of their ancestors because Akito could still smell the lingering scent of mothballs and dusty bones dried out in the moonlight. But it wasn't like she could tell Ren she craved the deep reds and silvers and sea-green colors unsuitable for boys.

Akito drew the gray yukata closer around her. The air was still icy and calm and dead. The snow had stopped falling, but the lack of sunlight meant there was a thick sheet of frozen water crystals blanketing everything from the birdfeeder to the empty patches of earth where nothing was growing. Maybe come springtime, Ren would allow Ayame to plant some flowers...

_No, Akito._

The sound of porcelain shattering echoed in the empty room as her teacup slid to the floor in a haphazard pile of hundred broken pieces of pale blue and thinly-veined white. Perfect bell for the door to slide open and for Shigure to walk through and look from the broken teacup to Akito's stormy face.

"I'm glad you've been keeping busy while I was gone, Aki."

The voice wasn't so much a shock; he made a point of entering at perfect moments. Without a word, Akito launched herself in Shigure's direction and wrapped her slender arms around his legs.

Shigure smiled down at her, a hand already ruffling the crown of her hair. "I've got a surprise for you. Close your eyes."

Akito scrunched up her nose and shook her head belligerently.

"No?"

She bit her lip.

"Eyes closed." He grinned a familiar grin that was both comforting and warming. With a strong tug at her shoulder, Shigure coaxed her eyes closed. She could hear him shuffling outside the door to her room and there were sounds of something being picked up, dropped, cursed, and then being picked up again. Something quivered in the general vicinity of her heart, because she didn't like closing her eyes when there was no one around to hold her. At least Kureno was allowed in at night, if no other time.

_Akito, you're everything Ren has left._

Before anyone had said she could open them, Akito's eyes flung open, dilated from a shock she couldn't quite put into words. Her voice echoed in surprise.

The occupants froze in an instant. Kureno's hand was stopped halfway from hanging up a gaudy garland festooned with red and white strands of sparkling confetti. The makeshift ladder was wobbling slightly on its feet, and Shigure was holding the legs in place. Ayame had his hands on a kettle and was setting up a small table of veritable delicacies that even Akito's tongue watered at, but likewise, he'd paused in all his movements. Hatori was holding a little potted spruce and had the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look that Akito had only read in a book, but if there was such a thing as paralyzed surprise, then Hatori was certainly it.

And oh, how everything suddenly hurt.

A short, broken gasp escaped her lips. A violent, almost unbearable, sensation of grief welled up in her and someone was sealing nails into her coffin. Akito buried her face into her hands and started weeping from everything that was wrong and right with the picture. It wasn't supposed to hurt, she knew. She was supposed to be happy and pleased and laughing, but all she could do was cry big, gulping sobs that came from somewhere even she couldn't identify.

The silence was punctuated by nothing but the sounds of her tears because none of them were really sure of what to do. But Ayame was the first to break from the spell and he scrambled over to Akito's side, already soothing Akito with a voice as soft as butter melting in a warm dish and hands which worked daily with silk.

"It's alright, Akito. It's alright." Ayame rubbed Akito's back, the shoulder blades sharp even under her thick robes. She was shaking and there was nothing to suggest that there was power hidden under her too-tightly drawn skin, but perhaps it was the answering tears in Ayame's eyes that said otherwise.

A momentary lull later, Kureno quietly finished the garlands and Hatori laced the rest of the lights around the tree.

Shigure stepped out the door and fumbled around a box before coming back in, his steps measured and filled with just the tiniest skip. Akito couldn't look up, but a shower of flowers prevented the need. She found herself sitting in a sea of gorgeously red camellias, all fresh and filled with the scents of the outside and outdoors. Some of the petals still glistened with dew.

Akito could suddenly see Shigure driving from florist to florist and buying out all their camellias while Hatori looked on with wry amusement. The image was sharp and vivid, almost as if she could smell the wildly clashing scents of the shop and feel the cold wind buffeting the two as they struggled with all the flowers. She could see Ayame cooking all day and filling a hamper with Akito's favorite foods and Kureno selecting decorations from some random variety store Akito could piece together with all the stories she'd read.

And Akito couldn't help but giggle, because the idea of solemn Hatori looking mutinous at being dragged along to buy flowers was just so _silly_.

She looked up at Shigure and for a moment, it was just the two of them and that moment out in the sunshine when she'd asked a question unsaid. He'd answered in a way she didn't really understand but knew was the best answer anyone could have given.

The world shone when Akito beamed.

There was a plausible exhale of relief. Ayame grinned broadly and launched into a repertoire about what clothing he'd conjured up in his absence and what might be suitable for Akito's new look. It sounded like Akito had made the decision all on her own (instead of having some shadowy mother figure lash the belief into her mind) and somehow, a little lie comforted Akito like no truth could.

There was an unreadable look on Shigure's face as Ayame chattered away and poured Akito's tea. But the expression smoothed the moment Akito looked at him and he stepped back into that warm circle, knowing things couldn't - wouldn't - last.

The Rat had, after all, started crawling.

**- fin -**


End file.
